They are determined to reshape politics in the interest of the one-percent.

Quiet as
it’s kept while the nation’s attention is focused on the November 6
Presidential election, a ballot box battle is underway in California, the implications of which extend
far beyond the borders of the country’s largest state. Here, rightwing big
business operative have launched an effort that, should it succeed, would
seriously undermine the political strength of working people and undermine
democratic decision-making.

Attempts
to restrict labor unions’ ability to engage in political campaigns have been on
the ballot in California
more than once and each time they have gone down to defeat. This time, the effort
is masquerading as an attempt at electoral reform. In fact, it would mean that
three million members of labor unions would be unable to contribute to
political campaigns while large corporate financiers would be exempted from any
restrictions at all.

While
the referendum measure, Proposition 32, on the November ballot proposes to end
labor unions’ use of funds collected from members through dues, and bars
corporations from using their operating funds for backing candidates and
parties, the illusion of equal treatment is a fraud. No restriction is placed
on the ability of billionaires, either individually or collectively, to
contribute any amount they wish to political campaigns, which is their usual
route. Furthermore, the framers of the measure wrote in special exemptions for
corporate-linked super PACS.

John
Logan, a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San FranciscoStateUniversity
and member of the California Teachers Association warns that, “If Prop. 32
passes in November, right-wing activists will promote a tsunami of ballot
initiatives in 2013 at the local level and in 2014 at the state level designed
to drive down working conditions in both the public and private sectors.
Lacking the ability to oppose these reactionary measures under the new election
rules, California’s
workers could soon face some of the weakest labor standards in the country.”

“Prop.
32 is not campaign finance reform, but a billionaires’
bill of rights, one that would be a game-changer in California
politics,” Logan
wrote recently. “When it comes to ballot initiatives, Prop. 32 is the ultimate
wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

The
hardly pro-labor San Jose Mercury-News
says Proposition 32 is “a deceptive sham that would magnify the influence of
wealthy interests while shutting out many middle-class voters.”

“First they silence our voice, then they will come after our jobs, wages and retirement

The
Proposition 32 campaign is being run by a superpac
that operates mostly in the shadows but is linked to the notorious Koch
Brothers and others who have bankrolled anti-union campaign in other parts of
the country. The group most publicly identified as a promoter of the
proposition the Lincoln Club of Orange County. The 50-year-old business group
is associated with Republican Party operations and its founding members and
past luminaries have included such rightwingers as
Arnold O. Beckman, the founder of Beckman Instruments, Walter Knott, the
founder of Knott’s Berry Farm, and Si Fluor of the Fluor Corporation, former
U.S. President Richard Nixon, and actor John Wayne. The group’s leaders say it
was “instrumental” in advocating for the recent Supreme Court Citizens United
decision that defined corporations as people with regards to campaign
contributions. Two years ago, the group joined Tea Party activists in a failed
attempt to restrict union political contributions, but that failed to qualify
for the ballot.

“Proposition
32 was written to limit the voice of nurses and other working people in
Sacramento, while giving free reign for corporate interests and the wealthiest
Californians to exert limitless influence over public policy in California. RN
duties and rights will be encumbered and made subordinate to the hospital
industry’s for-profit business enterprise.” DeAnn
McEwen, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses
United, wrote September 27 in Daily Kos.

“For
nurses, that means that we would have far less ability to counter the efforts
of the wealthy hospital industry, insurance companies, pharmaceutical and
health technology corporations who are in the halls of the Capital every day
lobbying to roll back longstanding workplace safety regulations to increase
their own profits at the public’s expense,” wrote McEwen. “Similarly, other
public safety workers and teachers would be unable to fight effectively on
issues that matter to us all - like cuts to our schools and colleges; and,
police and fire response times.”

But this
is not just a California
story.

The Nation magazine’s Washington
correspondent and regular commentator on MSNBC, John Nichols, was in San
Francisco a couple of weeks ago where he address a group of determined local
union activists. He called Proposition 32 “an absolutely critical matter” of “relevance
to the whole country.” If it passes, he wrote recently, “it
will go national just as groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council
and its corporate allies are mounting multi-state drives to silence unions.”

Three
million members of labor unions would be unable to contribute to
political campaigns while large corporate financiers would be exempted
from any restrictions at all

“In
Michigan, unions are trying to get ahead of the fight with a “Protect Our Jobs”
amendment on the ballot this fall that would add the right to collective
bargaining by public and private sector employees to the state Constitution,”
wrote Nichols, author of the new book Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street.
“Right-wing interests have poured millions into a brutal ad campaign falsely
claiming that the amendment would block schools from removing employees who are
former criminals. Michigan’s Protect Working Families coalition has countered
with the truth: ‘States with higher levels of collective bargaining have lower
poverty levels, higher average incomes, fewer workplace deaths and higher pension and health insurance coverage for all workers,
according to the Economic Policy Institute’.”

“In an
honest fight, voters will protect collective bargaining rights, as they did
last fall in Ohio
by a 62–38 margin,” wrote Nichols. “That’s why Mitt Romney, the Koch brothers
and their billionaire pals are spending so heavily - and campaigning so
dishonestly - to silence the voice of unions. And that’s why, as important as
the presidential race is, it’s also vital to win fights to maintain the
capacity of working people to speak truth to power.”

In an
opinion piece in the Contra Costa Times
last month, Leonard McNeil, vice mayor of San Pablo and a professor of
political science at Contra Costa College, called Proposition 32 an attempt “by
conservative forces in California to curtail and stifle the voices of working
people” and an effort “to align the political system with their ideological
vision.” It represents, he wrote, “a frontal assault on democratic pluralism to
advance the agenda of corporations and the wealthy.”

This
latest well-financed and deceptive effort to restrict labor ability to
influence political decision making in California
and the nation are not unrelated to the coordinated efforts to smash public
sector unions, the Citizens United decision and the ongoing voter repression
conspiracy. The plutocrats and the rightwingers have
seen the handwriting on the wall in terms of political and demographic trends
in the country and they are determined to reshape politics in the interest of
the one-percent by curtailing democratic decision-making.